@Boise_Lib, the article is a springboard to other articles.

You claimed that there are no scientific studies suggesting that an NDE can be the result of biological reactions which help the body to cope. This is demonstrably untrue. The section on endorphins—which also mentions serotonin and NMDA—has multiple references alone. Note that I am not saying these studies explain NDEs entirely—just that they exist. The hypothesis is a relatively old one.

The only conclusions I make regarding NDEs are that they are complex, poorly understood, difficult to study, and almost certainly nothing to do with an afterlife. It also makes for a fucking excellent piece of fiction!

Also, it's important to check out the Youtube comments and the video uploader's description. If you did that, you'd know his non-dying performances outweigh his dying performances. Someone did all that work and now you don't need to: http://www.compleatseanbean.com/deathbycow.html

HE DIES IN:
Airborne - bye bye Toombs
Caravaggio - Rannuccio gets his throat slashed
Clarissa - Lovelace is skewered by Sean Pertwee
Don't Say a Word - Patrick Koster is buried alive
Equilibrium - Death by Poetry - Partridge is blasted away by Christian Bale while reading Yeats
Essex Boys - Jason Locke meets a nasty end in a Range Rover
Far North - Loki is frozen. Naked. In the snow. A chilling end if there ever was one.
The Field - the infamous Death by Cow - Tadgh falls over a cliff, pursued by a herd of stampeding cows
GoldenEye - Alec Trevelyan falls a long way down and is crushed by a satellite dish thing
Henry VIII - Robert Aske meets a gruesome end
The Island - Death by Clone. Merrick is shot in the throat by a nasty grabber thingy with a sharp
hook and a cable that gets wrapped around his neck, and while he's struggling with Lincoln
Six-Echo, the catwalk they're on collapses, and Merrick ends up dangling by the neck. Currently
the most creative dispatch of Sean's career. Definitely well hung.
The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King) - Death
by Orc. Boromir. Arrows. Need I say more?
Lorna Doone - Carver Doone drowns
Outlaw - Dead Dead Dead. Was there ever any question? Dead.
Patriot Games - Sean Miller is beaten up, boathooked and finally blown up by Harrison Ford
Scarlett - Lord Fenton is dispatched
Tell Me That You Love Me - Gabriel Lewis is stabbed by Laura. Or he stabs himself. We're not
quite sure about this one, actually.
The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion - Death by summoning a god's avatar. Martin Septim (the son of the Emperor, aka The Lost Heir) meets his X-Box end when he attempts to save the world.
The Hitcher - Surely you jest. You need to ask? (There were two different versions filmed. He dies
in both of them.)
War Requiem - The German Soldier dies, but returns in the afterlife


HE LIVES IN:
(Leo Tolstoy's) Anna Karenina
A Woman's Guide to Adultery
The Big Empty
The Bill
Black Beauty
Bravo Two Zero
Exploits at West Poley
Extremely Dangerous
Faceless
The Fifteen Streets
Flightplan
Fool's Gold
How to Get Ahead in Advertising
In the Border Country
Inspector Morse: Absolute Conviction
Jacob
Lady Chatterley
The Loser
My Kingdom for a Horse
National Treasure (But only because of a rewrite. In an early version
of the the script Ian Howe got eaten by alligators in the subways of
New York. Really. Honest. I wouldn't lie to you. I wouldn't.)
North Country
Percy Jackson (Zeus is more or less an immortal so death seems a bit
redundant, really...)
The Practice
Pride
Prince
Punters
Ronin
Samson & Delilah
Sharpe (14 films)
Sharpe's Challenge
Shopping
Silent Hill
Small Zones
Stormy Monday
Tom & Thomas
Troubles
The Canterbury Tales - The Nun's Priest's Tale
The Dark
The True Bride
The Vicar of Dibley
Troy
Wedded
When Saturday Comes
Windprints
Winter Flight

Major Theatrical Performances:
Macbeth ... Yes. He dies. And gets his head impaled on a spike.
Romeo & Juliet... What do you think?
Fair Maid of the West ... Spencer doesn't die!

Nuts to that! I want a giant statue erected to my memory and all still-living sifters to be buried with me to shepherd me into the afterlife!

REMEMBER ME!

http://videosift.com/video/REMEMBER-ME

My only concern is: will people remember me or will they remember the statue?

(a copy of the messy comment above)

A collection of verses from the Qur'an about unbelievers

A person's beliefs about life (and afterlife) have a huge effect on how they live and perceive the value of other people's lives; it is nothing like blaming school shootings on violent video games, unless you assume that the shooters actually believed they lived inside a videogame.

The Qur'an, Islam's founding text, makes it quite clear that
a) The unbeliever will burn in hellfire forever (e.g. 4:56)
(nothing new here, M's recycling the holy texts already in existence)
and b) the unbeliever must be killed if he does not accept Islam (4:89), either by God or "or at our hands" (9:52); only Islam can exist on earth (2:193).
See this article on the history of Jihad and martyrdom in Islam.

Of course, the majority of muslims, like any other group of human beings, aspire to live their peaceful lives, etc. The difference between Islam and Christianity or Judaism, apart from its youth, is that it is founded upon a character and his book that are highly impervious to the effects of secularization. While the Bible is an edited compilation of transcripts written by several authors over centuries, the Qur'an was written by one warrior general in the space of his lifetime; questioning any part of the book's infallibility puts the whole faith in question, a risky thing when you read what the book in question has to say about non-believers. (I could go on, but really, Harris says it so much better than me in "The End of Faith" ...for free!).

But you want evidence, so here are a few things to ponder, in relation to what the Qur'an, and thus Islam, has to say about the topics in question. (Keeping in mind that Mohamed did not invent the barbarities that the book contains; they were contemporaneous, he simply enshrined them as the "infallible" word of God. Also: Mohamed's life, as transcribed in the Hadith, is considered a role model).

Honour killing: women considered property of men (see s.4:34) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/02/0212_020212_hon
orkilling_2.html
Honour killing: adulterers should be killed anyway, no?
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/07/24/2003180222

Because of sharia law's stance on adultery, it remains a crime in several Islamic countries
(sharia law is for the most part copied from the Torah/OT; in Islam, adultery is one of the worst sins/crimes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zina_(Arabic) ):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adultery#Criminal_penalties

Also, denouncing rape can get you jailed... for adultery:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=7943698

homosexuality: illegal in 75/195 countries; 32/48 Muslim countries. In 8 countries it is punishable by death... under sharia law, of course (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, UAE, Sudan, Nigeria, la Mauritania and Somalia).

Condoning slavery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_slavery#Slavery_
in_the_contemporary_Muslim_world

forced marriage of minors: what Islamic doctrine/scholars say: http://muslim-quotes.netfirms.com/childbrides.html
women protest age limit laws: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88589
more statistics on child brides (once again, the problem did not stem from Islam, but is upheld by it... Mo+Aisha): http://marriage.about.com/od/arrangedmarriages/a/childbride.htm

Apostasy and human rights: http://www.iheu.org/node/1541

Of the 126 designated terrorist organisations, 73 (60%) are religious, 65 (51%) are Islamic extremists. To compare, the second highest ranking terrorist-fueling ideology, communism, has only 21 (17%) groups. Jihad anyone?

Government report on link between Koranic schools and terrorism: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21654.pdf

Of the 17 "Significant Ongoing Armed Conflicts of 2010", only 5 are not marked by religious ideologies (only 2 if communism is counted as a religious ideology). Eleven of these conflicts involve Islamists, who are either trying to instate an Islamic theocracy (in accordance with the teachings of the Qur'an), or they are fighting Muslim governments that are considered not "Muslim" enough.

A collection of verses from the Qur'an about unbelievers

A person's beliefs about life (and afterlife) have a huge effect on how they live and perceive the value of other people's lives; it is nothing like blaming school shootings on violent video games, unless you assume that the shooters actually believed they lived inside a videogame.

The Qur'an, Islam's founding text, makes it quite clear that
a) The unbeliever will burn in hellfire forever (e.g. 4:56)
(nothing new here, M's recycling the holy texts already in existence)
and b) the unbeliever must be killed if he does not accept Islam (4:89), either by God or "or at our hands" (9:52); only Islam can exist on earth (2:193).
See this article on the history of Jihad and martyrdom in Islam.

Of course, the majority of muslims, like any other group of human beings, aspire to live their peaceful lives, etc. The difference between Islam and Christianity or Judaism, apart from its youth, is that it is founded upon a character and his book that are highly impervious to the effects of secularization. While the Bible is an edited compilation of transcripts written by several authors over centuries, the Qur'an was written by one warrior general in the space of his lifetime; questioning any part of the book's infallibility puts the whole faith in question, a risky thing when you read what the book in question has to say about non-believers. (I could go on, but really, Harris says it so much better than me in "The End of Faith" ...for free!).

But you want evidence, so here are a few things to ponder, in relation to what the Qur'an, and thus Islam, has to say about the topics in question. (Keeping in mind that Mohamed did not invent the barbarities that the book contains; they were contemporaneous, he simply enshrined them as the "infallible" word of God. Also: Mohamed's life, as transcribed in the Hadith, is considered a role model).

Honour killing: women considered property of men (see s.4:34) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/02/0212_020212_honorkilling_2.html
Honour killing: adulterers should be killed anyway, no?
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/07/24/2003180222

Because of sharia law's stance on adultery, it remains a crime in several Islamic countries
(sharia law is for the most part copied from the Torah/OT; in Islam, adultery is one of the worst sins/crimes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zina_(Arabic) ):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adultery#Criminal_penalties

Also, denouncing rape can get you jailed... for adultery:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=7943698

homosexuality: illegal in 75/195 countries; 32/48 Muslim countries. In 8 countries it is punishable by death... under sharia law, of course (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, UAE, Sudan, Nigeria, la Mauritania and Somalia).

Condoning slavery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_slavery#Slavery_in_the_contemporary_Muslim_world

forced marriage of minors: what Islamic doctrine/scholars say: http://muslim-quotes.netfirms.com/childbrides.html
women protest age limit laws: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88589
more statistics on child brides (once again, the problem did not stem from Islam, but is upheld by it... Mo+Aisha): http://marriage.about.com/od/arrangedmarriages/a/childbride.htm

Apostasy and human rights: http://www.iheu.org/node/1541

Of the 126 designated terrorist organisations, 73 (60%) are religious, 65 (51%) are Islamic extremists. To compare, the second highest ranking terrorist-fueling ideology, communism, has only 21 (17%) groups. Jihad anyone?

Government report on link between Koranic schools and terrorism: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21654.pdf

Of the 17 "Significant Ongoing Armed Conflicts of 2010", only 5 are not marked by religious ideologies (only 2 if communism is counted as a religious ideology). Eleven of these conflicts involve Islamists, who are either trying to instate an Islamic theocracy (in accordance with the teachings of the Qur'an), or they are fighting Muslim governments that are considered not "Muslim" enough.

edit: html's not working, so this looks like crap. sorry, i'm too tired to rearrange right now.


>> ^SDGundamX:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/hpqp" title="member since July 25th, 2009" class="profilelink">hpqp
You repeated his speaking points and provided no evidence to support them and then insinuated that I know nothing of Islam's teachings to boot. You've clearly learned from your teachers (Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens) quite well.
Show me some evidence please that shows that Islamic followers are more likely to cause harm to fellow human beings than others. By evidence I mean an empirical study that controls for other factors that include but are not limited to: education, income, regional cultural factors (other than religion), and local political systems (or lack thereof as the case may be, for example in countries such as Somalia).
And no, you didn't correct that for me. It doesn't matter their stated reasons for committing the violence. People who resort to violence do so for a complex array of reasons. I dispute the notion that people commit violence soley "because of their religion" any more than school shootings occur "because kids play violent video games."

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^ghark:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I never will understand how people can turn a message of salvation into such hate.

message of salvation? Indoctrinating kids with lies from an early age and giving them the false belief of an afterlife is not a message of salvation, it is just sad.

Not that I am a Christian, but that hardly sounds like the bible I read, which is my point entirely.


Maybe you missed the part about burning in an everlasting pit of fire if you don't believe? Anyways, I wasn't really referring to the words of the bible, I was referring to how the 'message of salvation' is communicated to those still unfit to discern wrong from right.

>> ^ghark:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I never will understand how people can turn a message of salvation into such hate.

message of salvation? Indoctrinating kids with lies from an early age and giving them the false belief of an afterlife is not a message of salvation, it is just sad.


Not that I am a Christian, but that hardly sounds like the bible I read, which is my point entirely.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

I never will understand how people can turn a message of salvation into such hate.


message of salvation? Indoctrinating kids with lies from an early age and giving them the false belief of an afterlife is not a message of salvation, it is just sad.

@Psychologic

He doesn't have evidence for anything.

Just an obsessive belief his afterlife will be full of puppies and rainbows.

Actually, I pretty much accepted the idea of death when I was agnostic. The reason I believe in God is because I know He is real, not because I'm afraid of death. I wasn't afraid of it then and I'm certainly not afraid of it now. I do what I do for God because it's what is right. You're wasting all of your time here, missing the entire point to life, which is to live a life pleasing to God so you are worthy of eternal life with Him.

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:
You're the only one utterly terrified here.
You're utterly terrified of what will happen to you in the moments of your death.
You want to live forever.
That's why you believe so hard in your precious fairy tale ending afterlife.
If proof that no gods existed was confirmed this day, multiple times..
(Or something worse, like proof that Allah existed and was the one true god)
You would breakdown crying hysterically.
>> ^shinyblurry:
this is the damned speaking to the damned..find hope in no hope! when his spirit leaves his body he is going to be utterly fucking terrified

You're the only one utterly terrified here.

You're utterly terrified of what will happen to you in the moments of your death.
You want to live forever.
That's why you believe so hard in your precious fairy tale ending afterlife.

If proof that no gods existed was confirmed this day, multiple times..
(Or something worse, like proof that Allah existed and was the one true god)

You would breakdown crying hysterically.
>> ^shinyblurry:

this is the damned speaking to the damned..find hope in no hope! when his spirit leaves his body he is going to be utterly fucking terrified

>> ^zaust:

Would love to know at what point the christians admit these animals have souls and can go to heaven. And at what point they'll admit evolution has been pretty much proved.


Bonobos can't go to heaven, but only because humans can't either.
There's no afterlife, so be good to each other and enjoy this one.

Pretty sure he meant in some sort of 'afterlife'.
>> ^spaceman:

I may be wrong, but it sounds like he was dead and you probably won't get the opportunity to ask him.

I used to hold the idea that religion is control by way of fear for a long time but I don't anymore. The thing is that, it wasn't until monotheistic religions came on the scene that the fear and guilt aspect of religion showed up. Before the monotheistic religions, most beliefs didn't even have an afterlife that anyone could obtain.

For the better part of human history, the gods were arbiters of earthly events that we found to be larger than ourselves. The ocean was seen as a god, the sky was seen as a god. It's only been in the last 1700 years that fear and guilt have been used as control mechanisms.

I know we've talked about this before but why shouldn't you judge people for the path that they're on. Surely if it were something extreme like murder or rape, you would judge them regarding that path, why should judgement be limited to only extreme examples?

I contend that if you really care about having as many true beliefs and as few false beliefs as you possibly can, you'll be weary of subjectivity and subject every bit of information that you believe to be true or that might be new to you with the rigors of extreme objective scrutiny. Why would you want to believe something that you can objectively verify that isn't true.

Here's the think about your paragraph on faith. It isn't arrogance if you are correct. Truth can be found objectively and objectively discovered truth is the only kind that matters. The first question that should come from discovering something subjectively is "how do I know that I'm not delusional?", or "How do I know that I can trust my senses?" Faith can be derived from subjective beliefs, and to me, because of that fact, I see faith as the most self-centered and egotistical thought process in existence. It favors the methods of the individual as being more potent in discovering truth than the rigors of objective verification. It makes the statement "I am important and trust worthy enough to make conclusions based on my limited perception of reality and therefore my conclusion is equally valid to contending views."

The nature of intellectual debates where two people hold two opposing ideas is that one person is correct while the other is incorrect, or they are both incorrect. Isn't it more important to present all of your ideas with other person in order to discover what is correct, or to at least discover that neither are correct?

To be honest, I find that the kind people who think that proclaiming truth is the height of arrogance, don't actually know what it means for something to be objectively true. I find that those people have a wishy-washy outlook on belief in the way that everyone beliefs are equally valid. The creedo being "I have beliefs that are good for me and you have beliefs that are good for you therefore we are equal". I find that kind of view childish in the way that it seems like it's trying to be overly equally. Some beliefs are true, some beliefs are false, and some beliefs are not true (being that they are misinformed or something similar).

If someone believes that 2+2=5, is it arrogance to tell them that they're belief is false?

In reply to this comment by enoch:
religion is control by way of fear.
they pretend to be the gatekeepers and the ONLY people with the key to get through.
this is utter bullshit (try telling a fundamentalist that though....oh wait).
to me evolution and natural selection are more in line with my understanding of a creator than say:adam and eve,gilgamesh or mithra.

my understanding of a creator and my connection to that creator also allows me..in fact compels me..to stick to my own understanding and not judge others the path they are on.(be that christian fundamentalist or atheist).
my path is my own.my understanding is my own as are my conclusions.
i have the humility to understand i do not know everything,far from it and that my existence is about my own experiences and understandings.
and to have the flexibility according to these understandings that they may..at any time..change due to my subjective reality.
so any new information i receive is added and creates a new paradigm.

as for faith.
well..i cant help you there to further your understanding.that is a personal road and any attempt i do make concerning that will only be regarded with your understanding and most likely misunderstood.
so i dont even try.
why would i? to do so would be the height of hubris and arrogance and i would become just like the preachy fundamentalist.
/shivers...no thank you.
i prefer human interaction laced with mutual respect and a full understanding that i may,possibly..be wrong.

anyways.
always great chatting with you about this subject.
it is still one of my faves.
be well brother.

Well, I'll have to disagree with you here. God isn't a myth. At the very least, God is an idea, and a philosophical conception. Let me ask you this, since you're science minded..Is the postulate of a creation really that irrational? Why is it so unlikely that it was? You may not agree with a particular account of creation, but just the basic question of how the Universe got here..why does creation seem unlikely to you?

I mean, for a species that hasn't even left its backyard, don't you think its a bit premature to rule that out? That in itself is bad science..as well as the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to support that view. Only a lack of evidence is pointed to, but as William Lane Craig says, an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Yes, religion has been misused. Evil people can abuse anything, especially Gods authority. Personally, I don't agree with anything the catholic church has done. If they are Christians, it's only by the skin of their teeth. There have also been evil atheists, like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot..and others who slaughtered tens of millions of their own people. It's human nature that is the problem here.

I know you don't believe in a spiritual reality, so you just don't get this video at all. It's not about the mans insight, he is describing an experience. This video is kind of chopped up..if you really want to evaluate it, watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9f2n0xPZ3k ..it's an interview which is much more indepth and makes some things clear which are not apparent.

For instance, when he goes to hell..he experiences being there for an eternity..not just a few minutes like it seems in the video..he describes being there for a vast amount of time, being self-aware the entire time and vividly recounting the thoughts that he had. He also goes into supreme detail of the experience he had with Jesus in going over his entire life, and secrets God revealed to him..not only that but he spends perhaps months with Jesus learning from Him and the angels in a question and answer session.

When he finally gets back, it turns out he was only unconscious for a moment..so all that time that had passed only equaled a moments time here. Plenty about this experience is unique, and intriguing. I would humbly submit that it is your lack of curiousity about the subject, mixed with the judgements you already have, that prevent you from seeing that.

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
there is a bias, all communities have a common ground. i just don't think the bias is against people of faith as much as it is a bias in favor of empirical evidence and against perpetuating bad science and myths. all myths, not just ones of a religious nature. and all bad science, not just creationism. i generally don't upvote atheist videos either. because they're often loaded with self righteousness and bad arguments. i do however, upvote good science and i do upvote thoughtful insight. i just didn't find this mans insight particularly insightful or original. people often have religious experiences when facing death, i have absolutely nothing against that. and i can understand the need to believe in an afterlife. i think spirituality is deeply personal and deeply powerful and deeply beautiful and fascinating. i think religion, however, is a massive power game and i think power breeds massive corruption... see the history of the catholic church and the influence of the christian right on todays political landscape.